Today's Focus: Verb Tense, Sentence Structure and Punctuation!!
Bellwork: Verb Tense
Look through your essay and put a TRIANGLE on all of your verbs. Read through and make sure your verbs match and do not switch from past to present back to past and then to future, and so on. (If you begin with the verb "went" and later use the verb "was going" then your verbs do not match.) If all of your verbs do not match, figure our which tense you want to go with, and change the unmatching verbs to match your chosen tense. (If you choose present, make sure none of your verbs end in -ed or begin with "will." Make sure all of the verbs show that the action is occuring right now.)
React to the paragraph. How did it sound? What did you notice?
As a class, work to combine the short sentences into longer sentences.
Edit:
Look through your essay and find any short, choppy sentences. Highlight the sentences. Look at the sentence in front, and behind and choose one to merge with the short sentence. Re-write in the margins.
Minilesson: FANBOYS
FANBOYS is an acronym that stands for For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So. The purpose of these words is to join two or more things in a sentence.
These words can join single words (Would you like one or two?);
whole phrases (He plans to post to Facebook today and try Twitter at least once by the end of the week);
or entire independent clauses — things that would stand alone as complete sentences without the conjunction (I would love to try the peaches, but the fuzz gives me the chills).
Just listen to School House Rock.
Edit:
Look through your essay and put a box around any FANBOYS you come to. Now, look on either side. What does the FANBOYS connect? If you are connecting two independent clauses (two clauses that have a subject and a verb and can stand alone) you MUST have a comma before the FANBOYS. Check to make sure you have this.
If you do not have any FANBOYS combining two independent clauses, make some! Find two sentences that can be combined by using one of the FANBOYS. By doing this you are making compound sentences, which adds some variety to our essay.
Adding Participial Phrases
Take a look at Participial Phrases. Look through your essay and using a highlighter put asterisks (*) by any sentence that contains a participial phrase.
You should have at least 2 participial phrases in your essay. If you do not, add them in any of the paragraphs. (Spread them out. If you only have 2, you do not want them to be right next to each other or in the same paragraph. Try to have one in each body paragraph. Or one in the introduction and one in the conclusion.) If you are comfortable with participials phrases, add multiple to your essay to give it more sentence variety.
Edit for Conventions
Swap papers with someone at your table. Edit (with a pen) for the following:
sentence structure
paragraphing (make sure the paragraphs are indented. Also, make sure there ARE paragraphs, and the whole essay isn't just all stuck together in one big lump.)
capitalization
punctuation (at the ends of sentences, also around quotations)
contractions (It's, wasn't, don't, etc)- All words need to be separated in order to be formal. Contractions give an informal tone.
Re-write
Before next class period you need to have your final draft of your essay written, with all of the above added and corrected in your paper. Please keep the current copy of your essay to turn in as a rough draft. You will get credit for your rough draft in addition to the final draft.
Today's Focus: Verb Tense, Sentence Structure and Punctuation!!
Bellwork: Verb Tense
Look through your essay and put a TRIANGLE on all of your verbs. Read through and make sure your verbs match and do not switch from past to present back to past and then to future, and so on. (If you begin with the verb "went" and later use the verb "was going" then your verbs do not match.) If all of your verbs do not match, figure our which tense you want to go with, and change the unmatching verbs to match your chosen tense. (If you choose present, make sure none of your verbs end in -ed or begin with "will." Make sure all of the verbs show that the action is occuring right now.)Minilesson: Combining Sentences
Edit:
Minilesson: FANBOYS
FANBOYS is an acronym that stands for For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So. The purpose of these words is to join two or more things in a sentence.Just listen to School House Rock.
Edit:
Look through your essay and put a box around any FANBOYS you come to. Now, look on either side. What does the FANBOYS connect? If you are connecting two independent clauses (two clauses that have a subject and a verb and can stand alone) you MUST have a comma before the FANBOYS. Check to make sure you have this.If you do not have any FANBOYS combining two independent clauses, make some! Find two sentences that can be combined by using one of the FANBOYS. By doing this you are making compound sentences, which adds some variety to our essay.
Adding Participial Phrases
Take a look at Participial Phrases. Look through your essay and using a highlighter put asterisks (*) by any sentence that contains a participial phrase.You should have at least 2 participial phrases in your essay. If you do not, add them in any of the paragraphs. (Spread them out. If you only have 2, you do not want them to be right next to each other or in the same paragraph. Try to have one in each body paragraph. Or one in the introduction and one in the conclusion.) If you are comfortable with participials phrases, add multiple to your essay to give it more sentence variety.
Edit for Conventions
Swap papers with someone at your table. Edit (with a pen) for the following:Re-write
Before next class period you need to have your final draft of your essay written, with all of the above added and corrected in your paper. Please keep the current copy of your essay to turn in as a rough draft. You will get credit for your rough draft in addition to the final draft.